Louise Michel

Louise Michel (French: [lwiz miʃɛl] ; 29 May 1830 – 9 January 1905), also known by her nickname of Enjolras, was a French teacher, writer, poet, philosopher, Communard, and anarchist. A major figure in the Paris Commune, where she was militarily and politically involved and was one of the most famous representatives of the role played by women in the Paris Commune, she was also a feminist figure and became one of the key personalities of anarchism during her lifetime, a movement she joined after the Commune and profoundly influenced.

Concerned with education from an early age, she taught for several years before moving to Paris in 1856. At the age of 26, she developed significant literary, educational, and political activity there and connected with several Blanquist revolutionary figures in Paris during the 1860s.

In 1871, she actively participated in the events of the Paris Commune, both on the front line and in support. Having turned herself in in May to secure her mother's release, she was deported to New Caledonia, where she converted to anarchist thought. She returned to mainland France in 1880, thanks to the amnesty for the Communards, and, being very popular, participated in numerous demonstrations and meetings in favor of the working class. She remained under police surveillance and was imprisoned several times but continued her political activism throughout France until her death at the age of 74 in Marseille.

She remains a prominent revolutionary and anarchist figure in the collective imagination. The first anarchist to display the black flag during the demonstration of 9 March 1883, she popularized it within the anarchist movement. She was also a precursor on the issue of animal welfare, denouncing animal cruelty and exploitation, in particular, alongside that of human beings.

Early life

Louise Michel was born May 29, 1830 to Marianne Michel, a domestic worker, and Laurent Demahis. She was raised by her paternal grandparents, Charlotte and Charles-Étienne Demahis, in northeastern France. She spent her childhood in the Château de Vroncourt and was provided with a liberal education. When her grandparents died, she completed teacher training and worked in villages.

Career and activism

In 1865 Michel opened a school in Paris which became known for its modern and progressive methods. She corresponded with the prominent French romanticist Victor Hugo and began publishing poetry. She became involved in the radical politics of Paris and among her associates were Auguste Blanqui, Jules Vallès and Théophile Ferré. In 1869 the feminist group Société pour la Revendication des Droits Civils de la Femme (Society for the Demand of Civil Rights for Women) was announced by André Léo. Among the members of the group were Michel, Paule Minck, Eliska Vincent, Élie Reclus and his wife Noémi Reclus, Mme Jules Simon, Caroline de Barrau and Maria Deraismes. Because of the broad range of opinions, the group decided to focus on the subject of improving girls' education.

Commonly known as the Revendication des Droits de la Femme (Demand for Women's Rights), the group had close ties with the Société Coopérative des Ouvriers et Ouvrières (Cooperative Society of Men and Women Workers). The July 1869 manifesto of the Revendication des Droits de la Femme was thus signed by the wives of militant cooperative members. The manifesto was also supported by Sophie Doctrinal, signing with Citoyenne Poirier (citizen Poirier), who would later become a close associate of Michel in the Paris Commune. In January 1870 Michel and Léo attended the funeral of Victor Noir. Michel expressed disappointment that the death of Noir had not been used to overthrow the Empire. At the start of the Siege of Paris, in November 1870, Léo in a lecture declared "It is not a question of our practicing politics, we are human, that is all."

Paris Commune

During the siege, Michel became part of the National Guard. When the Paris Commune was declared she was elected head of the Montmartre Women's Vigilance Committee. In April 1871 she threw herself into the armed struggle against the French government. Her close ally, Théophile Ferré, was a senior member of the Commune and of its Committee of Public Safety. It was Ferré who ordered the execution of Georges Darboy, the Archbishop of Paris. She was aligned with Ferré and Raoul Rigault, two of the most militant members of the Paris Commune. However, Ferré and Rigault persuaded her to not carry out her plan to assassinate Adolphe Thiers, the chief executive of the French national government. Michel fought with the 61st Battalion of Montmartre and organized ambulance stations during the beginning of the Bloody Week (May 21–28, 1871), the battle that ended the Commune In her memoirs she later wrote "oh, I'm a savage all right, I like the smell of gunpowder, grapeshot flying through the air, but above all, I'm devoted to the Revolution." On May 23, after a fierce fight, Montmartre was captured by the French Army. On May 24, she surrendered to the French army in order to save her mother from possible imprisonment.

Michel ideologically justified a militant revolution, proclaiming: "I descended the Butte, my rifle under my coat, shouting: Treason! . . . Our deaths would free Paris". She reflected: "It is true, perhaps, that women like rebellions. We are no better than men with respect to power, but power has not yet corrupted us." In her memoirs Michel confessed that the realities of the revolutionary government strengthened her resolve to end discrimination against women. On the attitude of her male comrades, she wrote, "How many times, during the Commune, did I go, with a national guardsman or a soldier, to some place where they hardly expected to have to contend with a woman?" She challenged her comrades to "play a part in the struggle for women's rights, after men and women have won the rights of all humanity?"

In December 1871, Michel was tried by a military court along with soldiers captured during the Bloody Week. She was charged with offenses including trying to overthrow the government, encouraging citizens to arm themselves, and using weapons and wearing a military uniform. She dared the judges to sentence her to death, saying "It seems that every heart that beats for freedom has no other right than a bit of lead, so I claim mine!" Instead, Michel was among 1,169 Commune supporters sentenced to penal transportation to a French prison colony in the South Pacific.

It is estimated by some sources that 20,000 defenders of the Paris Commune had been killed or summarily executed after combat, though this number is disputed by other more recent sources. Jacques Rougerie, a noted French Marxist historian, put the probable number at closer to 10,000.

Deportation

On August 8, 1873, following twenty months in prison, Michel was loaded onto the ship Virginie, to be deported to New Caledonia, where four months later she arrived. While on board she became acquainted with Henri Rochefort, a famous polemicist, who became her lifelong friend. She also met Nathalie Lemel, another figure active in the commune. It was this latter contact that led Louise to become an anarchist. She remained in New Caledonia for seven years and during that period befriended the local Kanak people.

Taking an interest in Kanak legends, cosmology and languages, particularly the bichelamar creole, she learned about Kanak culture from friendships she had made with Kanak people. She taught French to Kanaks and took their side in the 1878 Kanak revolt. The following year, she received authorization to become a teacher in Nouméa for the children of the deported—among them many Algerian Kabyles ("Kabyles du Pacifique") from Cheikh Mokrani's rebellion (1871).

Return to France

In 1880, amnesty was granted to those who had participated in the Paris Commune. Michel returned to Paris, her revolutionary passion undiminished. She gave a public address on 21 November 1880 and continued her revolutionary activity in Europe, attending the 1881 London Social Revolutionary Congress, where she led demonstrations and spoke to huge crowds. While in London, she also attended meetings at the Russell Square home of the Pankhursts where she made a particular impression on a young Sylvia Pankhurst. In France she successfully campaigned, together with Charles Malato and Victor Henri Rochefort, for an amnesty to be also granted to Algerian deportees in New Caledonia.

In March 1883 Michel published in La Vengeance Anarchiste, a journal calling for propaganda by the deed. Three days later, she led a demonstration of unemployed workers with her friend, Émile Pouget. In the subsequent riot, 500 demonstrators led by Michel pillaged three bakeries and shouted "Bread, work, or lead". Reputedly, Michel led this demonstration with a black flag, which has since become a symbol of anarchism. It was the first recorded use of the anarchist black flag.

Michel was tried for her actions in the riot and used the court to publicly defend her anarchist principles. She was sentenced to six years of solitary confinement for inciting the looting. Michel was defiant. For her, the future of the human race was at stake, "one without exploiters and without exploited." Michel was released in 1886, at the same time as Kropotkin and other prominent anarchists.